Cabarete

Last race of the 2008 Laser Caribbean Midwinters at Cabarete. Last chance to be a hero. Or, more realistically, last chance to finish somewhere other than the tail end of the fleet.

The wind is just right for me. Strong enough that my height and weight (post-two-month-inactivity-and-Xmas 10-pound-weight-gain weight) should give me the ability to grind down the little guys upwind. Not so strong that I’m going to lose it downwind.

One of my friends sails by before the start and shouts something about leaving it all out there on the course, no point in saving anything for tomorrow. Yeah baby.

No more timid starts. No more half-hearted hiking. No more Mr Nice Guy at mark roundings. This is it. Game on.

I ace a great start… front row, mid-line, heading left. (Yeah left, I do learn from my mistakes eventually.) One of the best sailors from the clinic is to leeward of me but I hike hard and focus on boatspeed and hold my lane for the first couple of minutes until I detect a small header and tack.

Hmmm. Maybe I haven’t totally forgotten how to sail this beast.

I work the left side of the course, make sure I’m always sailing in clear air, rig powered up as much as I can handle, hiking my socks off… and I’m around mid-fleet at the first mark. Best beat this regatta.

Yeah baby. Now I remember why I love this sport.

I’m working the waves downwind, getting some good rides, no thoughts of capsizes, execute a nice smooth leeward mark rounding ahead of people I’ve been behind all week, and I’m off upwind again, looking good.

Middle of the beat I’m on a convergence course with one of the other fast sailors from the clinic. He tries to lay a leebow on me but isn’t quite ahead enough to make it work. We’re bow to bow. I hike superhard for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds. My quads are screaming but I’m edging ahead. Yeah, now he’s in my bad air and he has to tack away. Ha. This is what it’s all about. Meet the best man-to-man and grind him down. Take that dude!

Now I’m on the left of the course next to the guy who almost won race 1. All the way up the second half of the beat I’m hanging in there with him. Hmmm, maybe I’m not as slow as I thought.

Smooth bear away at the mark and catch the first wave. This is how I should have been sailing all week. One boat passes me on the run. (Hey he’s always giving me good advice in the comments here so that’s OK.) Even so, I finish in the middle of the fleet, way better than I’ve done in any other race this regatta.

Well, it took me all week but I finally found my groove. Nothing better than finishing a regatta with your best race. Maybe I won’t give up Laser sailing after all.

Learnings

1. With the right attitude I can make a great start.

2. If I hike hard I can hang in there with the best.
3. Staying close to the leading pack is better odds than banging the other corner.
4. Now I need to work out why I wasn’t sailing like this all week.
5. Then I need to work out how to move even further up the fleet.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

It’s the last day of the Laser Caribbean Midwinters at Cabarete. So far in the regatta my race results have been dismal to bad. One last day for redemption.

The wind is similar to Day 2, starting light but increasing as the day progresses. But the current is running the other way, against us on the beat. Hmmm, need a different strategy I guess.

In race 1 there is a mass of boats at the pin so I start mid-line and tack on to port in clear air. There seems to be a huge pile-up at the pin so I’m feeling smug and self-satisfied to have avoided that mess. Keep trucking in clear air for a minute or two.

But what now? The boats on the left are passing me. I’m confused. How can this be? I dig back in to the left so as not to lose touch with the leaders.

But wait. What’s this? The boats that went to the right are winning out big-time. In fact the boat that went the furthest right, a guy who had been in the middle of the fleet up to now, is in first place at the windward mark.

I am DFL at the first mark. Ho hum. This is the first time I’ve been last. Let’s make it the last time.

I catch a couple of boats by playing the shifts on the second beat, but this is not turning out to be one of my best regattas.

While the race committee are moving the buoys before the second race I ponder my options…

Hmmm. So right was right. Well maybe I should just bang the right corner in the second race, roll the dice, see what happens? Hey, I can’t do any worse than I’m already doing so what do I have to lose? It’s probably because of the current. Going right gets you out of the adverse current. It’s a theory. It’s a plan. Let’s do it.

The wind has strengthened for the second race and also shifted left quite a bit. I get a good start and execute my plan. Bang the corner. Rightsville Population 1 here I come.

I see that all of the smart sailors are going left. So what? There are two possible outcomes…

1. They are correct and I will be last at the windward mark again. What’s new?

2. I will be right, I will look like a genius, and I will have something spectacular to write about on the blog. Worth a try.

Hmmm. It’s getting lonely out here. Everyone else is bailing out and heading left. But I’m tanking along on port tack, way, way, way out to the corner. One tack and here I come.

How does it look? Pretty good. Start rehearsing suitably modest comments for when everyone congratulates me for being so brilliant.

Hmm. Maybe I misjudged the angle. Looks like the leaders might cross me.

Uh oh, maybe I was wrong? Looks like a bunch of boats will cross me

Uh oh, oh no. They’re all crossing me.

At the first mark I’m back with the tailenders again. How did that happen?

Possible explanations…

1. With the big shift to the left between the races, the right corner is not so far inshore and so I didn’t get out of the adverse current.

2. The wind kept shifting left and I didn’t notice.
3. The right corner paid in the first race because of pressure or a shift, not current.
4. I’m just slow.
5. God hates me.
6. All of the above.

Learnings

1. Lightning never strikes in the same place twice.

2. If the smart money is all betting the same way it’s probably right (or left in this case.)
3. God does hate me.

OK. One last race for redemption. Let’s roll.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

The second day of the Caribbean Laser Midwinters Regatta at Cabarete promises to be the best day of the week so far, for several reasons…

1. We are racing outside the reef.
2. There is wind.
3. The wind is increasing during the day.
4. There are waves.
5. It’s not raining.

Unfortunately my race performance doesn’t live up to the potential of the day.

I do OK in the first two races. Just OK. Not great.

The third race I guess it is blowing about 20 knots with the current running against the wind. The swell is coming from the left side of the course looking upwind but there is also a lot of chaotic chop on top of the waves.

I do OK on the upwind leg. Just OK. Not great.

Then on the downwind leg I capsize. I am sailing a more-or-less direct line for the leeward mark and one of the waves coming from the side rolls me to windward. I’m not the only one to capsize but I think my response to it is probably the worst in the fleet.

I do a fairly slow capsize recovery. Make sure I turn the bow into the wind first so I won’t do one of those capsize recoveries with the rig lying to windward of the hull which is a recipe for letting the wind capsize the boat again before you can get into the cockpit.

OK. I’m back in the boat. Let’s start sailing again. But somehow I’ve lost the ability to steer the boat aggressively down the waves. I sail fifty yards or so and death roll again. Another slow recovery. This time partly because I’m getting a bit tired.

Back in the boat again. Rest of fleet is way downwind near the leeward mark. Sail off tentatively in that general direction. Big mistake. Wham. A third death roll. This is starting to irritate me.

Do a very very slow third capsize recovery. Hmmm. Now I’m about half a leg behind the next boat. I seem to have lost all ability to sail downwind properly. I’m getting more tired. Time to call it a day. This is probably the last race of the day anyway. There’s a regatta dinner planned for tonight and I’m sure the race committee won’t want us to be late for the party.

I sail back to the beach feeling dejected and angry at myself. Why can’t I just snap back after a capsize? Almost everybody capsized at least once. It’s no big deal. Why do I lose all confidence in my ability to handle the waves and then start sailing in a way that just invites more capsizes.

I get back to the beach and that guy, my nemesis, the sailor I am always trying to beat is there before me. He has some totally unbelievable tale of being involved in a hassle with another boat at the leeward mark, getting into irons, capsizing, being dragged underwater for a hundred yards, having his nose and ears pumped full of seawater so he’s totally deaf and totally drowned… or some such cock-and-bull story. I don’t believe a word of it.

It’s obvious to me that we both have the same issue. We capsized. We lost it. Two old farts who should know better.

Oh well. It’s good to know I’m not the only one.

Learnings

1. Need more time practicing in waves. Terrigal here I come.

2. When waves are coming from the quarter and threatening to capsize me I should probably bear off and ride those waves downwind and then come back up on a (more stable) broad reach.
3. Fitness matters. I knew I wasn’t fit enough coming into this regatta, and this is how it shows.
4. Maybe it’s time to consider a Radial Rig. At Masters regattas we are allowed to switch between Standard and the smaller Radial rigs from day to day. One of my friends (about my weight) sailed a Radial Rig the whole regatta and had a whole lot of fun. The current Great Grandmaster World Champion sailed a Radial rig one day in this regatta. I’ve been doing the macho “I don’t need a Radial” thing for years now. Maybe it’s time to recognize my limitations and use a rig I can handle on the windier days? At the very least I could use it for practice on very windy days when otherwise I probably wouldn’t go out on my own.
5. I need to find a way to adjust my mental attitude to capsizes on runs. Bounce back. Do a fast recovery. Sail on aggressively. Get back in the game. I used to do this. Why have I lost it?
6. Fitness matters.

Postscript

At the regatta dinner we shared a table with a sailor whose partner seemed to be an expert masseuse. During the evening she progressed around the table giving each sailor (and some of their wives) a shoulder and back rub. We all laughed as she commented on how she perceived each sailor’s tenseness or otherwise. “Oh, you’re really soft.” “You’re so tense.”

When she came to me she announced that I was basically a very relaxed person who “looks after himself” whatever that means. Did she mean I keep myself in shape (which isn’t true)? Or did she mean I am basically selfish (probably true but not great patter for a social occasion)?

Then she claimed to discover one point of tension in my right shoulder that was symbolic of some problem or worry. She kept kneading away at my shoulder and crying, “Let it out. Let it out.” I tried to enter into the spirit of the moment and mentally “let it go”, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be letting go of.

I wonder what it can be?

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

You will have gathered that the weather conditions during the first part of our week in the Dominican Republic were unusual.

“The weather is never like this, at this time of year.” How many times have you heard that?

It rained a lot. The winds were often light.

I heard various explanation from the local experts in Cabarete. A stalled front. Al Gore. Whatever.

But I think the explanation we heard from a waiter in one of the Cabarete restaurants one night was closest to the truth…

“God is angry with the Dominican people because we haven’t been praying enough.”

Pray harder Jose.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds.

If you’ve been following the accounts so far of my sailing trip earlier this month to the Dominican Republic you will have heard about…

One day when there was no wind for sailing at all.

One day when we probably shouldn’t have bothered to sail.

One frustrating day of racing in light winds when we only completed one race.

One day when the wave conditions made it impossible for us to sail through the reef.

One long day of light wind practice.

Not exactly what I was expecting after the big wind, big wave conditions of last year, I must admit. Ironically, one of my friends who went to Cabarete last year didn’t come this year because he had concluded that the winds were always too strong for him to enjoy his sailing.

Hmmm.

I guess my accounts so far are a bit of a downer.

I even had an email this morning from some reader who must have felt sorry for me, encouraging me to visit a sailing center in Thailand that (like of all these places) promises reliable winds (and no rain).

But wait, dear reader. It does get better.

The conditions on the final two days of the Caribbean Midwinters Regatta made up for the frustrations earlier in the week. The week finishes on a positive note.

And even in the first part of the week I was having fun and learning a lot. Hey… beach, Lasers, Ron, fish and chips… what’s not to like?

Watch this space.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

What if you threw a party and nobody showed up?

What if you were the race committee for a major regatta and none of the sailors would sail out to the course?

It didn’t quite come to that. But almost.

The first day of the 2008 Laser Caribbean Midwinter Regatta couldn’t have been a bigger contrast to last year’s event. Last year we had waves the size of houses, and winds that… hmmm…. how do they describe big winds in the Caribbean? Blowing dogs off chains? Koalas off trees? I dunno.

In any case there weren’t any dogs or koalas whistling through the palm trees this year. At the appointed launch time there wasn’t any wind whatsoever.

The committee boat set out for the race area. Th AP flag on shore came down at 11am. All the sailors sat on the beach.

The committee waited. The sailors waited. Who would blink first?

A light zephyr wafted across the surface of the water and a few sailors broke ranks. The rest of us watched from the beach as they drifted away on the current, making little or no progress towards the race area.

Around 1pm the rest if us launched and sailed out in a light wind to the committee boat. Where we waited. And waited. And waited.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticizing the race committee. The wind just wasn’t cooperating. During the wait I tried to practice some of the light air skills that Rulo had taught us on the clinic.

Eventually the committee started a sequence in a light breeze with the current pushing us upwind over the line. General recall. What a surprise. Black flag. Another general recall. Three boats black flagged. Fun, fun, fun.

Then we got away. I made a diabolically bad start near the committee boat followed by a botched tack to clear my air. Hmmm. I’m already with the tail-enders.

It was a two lap windward-leeward course with a downwind finish. I tried to find a clear lane and play the side of the course that I figured would take most advantage of the current. I passed a few boats.

The committee tried to start another race under a black flag but after one general recall where nobody was flagged (how is that possible?) and another one where confusing numbers were posted, they called it a day.

Back on the beach one of the sailors black flagged was organizing some others to file a request for redress. The PRO didn’t look too happy. It had been a difficult and frustrating day to be a race committee too.

Not the best day of racing I’ve ever had. But hey, there’s Ron in the hotel room, and wait… it’s Friday. Must go to Jose O’Shea’s Irish pub for fish and chips on the beach.

Life is good.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

On the lay day between the clinic and the regatta at Cabarete I opted to follow coach Rulo’s advice and not to sail. It was a sunny day with light winds so Tillerwoman and I just relaxed and enjoyed a day at the beach.

Around 3pm we strolled down to the Laser Center to complete my registration for the regatta and then we went out to dinner at Otra Cosa, one of Cabarete’s finest restaurants. On the way to the restaurant we ran into another New England Laser sailor we know who had just arrived. He had a tale of woe to tell.

Last year he flew via Puerto Rico to the DR and the airline canceled one of the legs of his flight.

This year he flew via Miami to the DR and the airline had lost all his luggage. All he had were the clothes he was standing up in and his toothbrush.

I couldn’t resist telling him my tale about why I am paranoid about booking non-stop flights whenever possible. We invited him to join us for dinner but he said he had better walk down to the Laser Center and sign in and see what arrangements he could make to sail… with no sail, no lines, no tiller and no sailing clothes.

Hmmm. After dinner I began to think that crowing about how smart I had been to book a direct flight might not have been the most helpful response to my buddy’s dilemma. What an ass I am.

So in the morning I dug out a spare pair of shorts and a long sleeve rashguard and lent them to him. He managed to borrow all the other equipment he needed and sail in the regatta which just goes to show that maybe my paranoia about airlines might be a bit extreme.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

It was a weird day.

Day 4 of the pre-regatta Laser clinic in Cabarete was somewhat strange to be sure.

In the morning briefing coach Rulo educated us on how to sail a reach in a Laser. Lots of great advice. Starting practice was promised for the on-the-water session. But it was not to be.

It rained off and on all morning. Did I mention that it had been raining in Cabarete pretty much all the time since we arrived? Or at least it seemed like that.

There would be no wind. Then some gusts as a rain squall arrived. Then rain. Then the rain stopped but so did the wind.

During every lull Rulo would optimistically promise, “After the next rain, we sail.” After the next rain… no wind. No sailing.

We grabbed some lunch from the Eze Bar.

Around 2:30, with the day rapidly slipping away from us, during another apparent no-wind gap between showers, Rulo said without much hope, “You can try to sail if you want.” We students mulled it over. It was decided to send out a “rabbit” in a Laser to see if it was possible to sail in these conditions. Actually three of us volunteered to go out. Might as well. We came here to sail.

As soon as we launched it was apparent that there was a bit of wind out on the sea. Fluky and squirrely to be sure. From an unusual direction too. I played around a bit surfing upwind on one tack as the rest of the group joined us. We sailed towards the gap in the reef and the wind picked up a bit more, though it was still very shifty. Hmmm, maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

The wind died completely just after I crossed the reef. Ho hum. Then it filled in again from the more normal vaguely NE direction. Some of us sailed upwind a few hundred yards while Rulo set up some start line buoys.

I bore away to return to the start area and the fitting holding my mainsheet block on the end of the boom came off the boom as one of the rivets popped out. Damn. For you the war is over, my friend. The other guys started a race as I sailed back to the beach.

Tillerwoman met me on the beach and brought me a beer. Ari, the owner of the Laser Center, saw what had happened and told me, “First finish your beer. Then de-rig and I’ll replace your boom.” What a guy!

“You’re the luckiest guy alive!” says Ari.

“Why?” I didn’t feel lucky.

“Better you had that thing break today and not in the regatta on Friday.”

Hmmm. I guess so. I still didn’t feel lucky.

I was kinda wondering whether to rush to rig up a new boom and go out sailing again. But before I had finished my beer I saw the rest of the group returning to the beach too. They had done a couple of drills and then packed it in because the wind wasn’t cooperating. “You didn’t miss much,” said Rulo.

There was a debrief. As far as I recall the main advice for dealing with these shifty, fluky conditions was, “Get a wind indicator.” Hmmm.

More rain. The class hung around asking Rulo questions until the rain stopped.

“Can we sail tomorrow?” (The next day was planned as a lay day before the regatta started on Friday.)

“If you want. But top sailors don’t practice on the day before a major regatta. It’s a time to check your boat, make sure nothing’s going to break, and to rest.”

Hmmm. Oh well, I’m the luckiest man alive. Where’s the Ron?

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

I’ve already written several posts about how the coach at the Laser Training Center in Cabarete, Javier Borojovich, a.k.a Rulo, is damn good. But even the master is not perfect…

On the third day of the clinic, we were doing a drill to simulate crowded leeward mark roundings. The first attempt caused a huge pile-up at the mark. Just like one of those mid-fleet catastrophes at the gate in Tacticat. Rulo gave us all a stern lecture to, “Follow the rules”.

Second shot at the drill, Rulo jumped into a Laser himself and was showing off his roll gybes and aggressive tactical positioning. Final approach to the mark, I’m on starboard tack nicely positioned to the leftish side of the pack. Then here comes Rulo gybing on to port trying to cross my bow and attain an inside position. Oops. The boats bump. He didn’t quite make it.

I have to confess I couldn’t resist shouting out, “Follow the rules!” all the rest of the time we were doing that drill.

But Rulo is still a damn fine coach.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

And on the third day… we sailed through the reef.

After a week at Cabarete last year when the wave conditions were always too severe for us to sail through the gap in the reef, and another weekend of similar conditions this year, I was beginning to doubt that I would be trapped forever inside the line of breaking waves from point to point that confined us to the relatively small bay of Cabarete.

But no. On Tuesday the ocean swell had moderated and we were able to sail out into the Atlantic Ocean for a long day of practice in relatively light winds. Rulo had us doing rabbit starts time after time to work on light air upwind technique and speed, and then good old “tacking on a whistle”. After we had sailed about half way to Bermuda we then did a whole series of downwind drills.

As on Sunday, Rulo was excellent both on the water and in the debrief in pointing out how to improve our technique, well my technique. Some of the other sailors were seriously faster than me in these conditions.

Rulo gave us longer on the water than usual, to make up for yesterday I assume. No complaints from this sailor. I came here to sail.

The walk back to the hotel seemed shorter than yesterday. The shower was more refreshing. And Ron… Ron worked his magic again. I love Cabarete.

Da doo ron ron.

Learnings

Upwind in light air

1. Lock body into boat better.
2. Sail with shoulders outside of butt.
3. Lock tiller on leg.
4. Steer with movements of the back, not the tiller.
5. Have a slight heel in waves, flatten between waves.
6. In waves just take out the slack in the vang.

Roll tacks

1. Sheet in before the tack

Roll gybes

1. Move towards center line before the gybe.
2. Over trim before the gybe.
3. Wait for sail to fill before flattening after the gybe.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

On the second day of the Laser clinic prior to the Caribbean Midwinters in Cabarete, coach Rulo gave us a seminar on downwind sailing in various wind strengths and wave conditions.

There was much discussion of techniques for transition from sailing a broad reach to by-the-lee; merits of knee-up and knee-down positions; fore-aft trim; loose vang and tight outhaul vs tighter vang and looser outhaul; and so on and so on.

I am aware that the previous sentence will make no sense whatsoever to outsiders to the secret society of Laser sailors, but aficionados of the sport will know that such subjects can occupy many happy hours of discussion, not to mention spawn uncounted unending threads on the Laser Forum.

Just to round out the day of Laser technique porn, Rulo schooled us on the secrets of success for gybes and tacks in heavy air and light air. At the end of the session my head was spinning, and I see that I filled up six pages of my notebook with what is now an indecipherable meaningless scrawl. (Note to self: I should have listened to Miss Bush in third grade when she said I needed to work on a neater cursive writing style.)

Unfortunately the weather gods did not favor us on Day 2. It rained all morning and then there was little to no wind in the afternoon. No sailing at all today. So Rulo gave us a Rule 42 seminar instead. This guy is relentless!

However this is seriously bad news. Having foolishly bragged that I will sail my Laser 100 days this year, I had counted on 7 days of sailing in the DR to launch me on the quest. Now I am 50% behind schedule and if this trend continues (as they say on TV election coverage) I will only make 50 days of Lasering this year. Gadzooks! Do I have to plan for 200 days to achieve 100?

Oh well, look on the bright side. I will just have to sail one more day in the summer to make up for it.

Tillerwoman and I slunk back to our hotel, damp and dejected. Just as well that Ron was waiting there to console us.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

I was somewhat apprehensive about the first day of the pre-Midwinters Regatta Laser clinic in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. I hadn’t sailed for many weeks. Indeed I think I had only had one day of practice on the water since the Laser Masters Worlds in October. Three months with hardly any sailing! I was bound to be rusty.

Add in a back injury that had stopped me exercising for several weeks after the Worlds, then a couple of miserable man colds, and worse than usual early winter sloth… and I was more overweight and less fit than I had been for years. The conditions on Friday and Saturday had been similar to last year’s regatta, big waves and crazy winds. By Sunday, the first day of the clinic, the winds had moderated to around 15 knots but the waves were still big enough that it was impossible to sail through the gap in the reef. Was I in any shape to tackle a repeat of last year’s fiasco?

After we had rigged our boats the group of ten or eleven students met for the on-the-shore briefing. Coach Rulo took us through a lesson on sailing upwind in waves. It was apparent right away that this guy is a seriously good teacher of sailing skills. It’s not that I hadn’t heard about upwind technique in a Laser before. I’ve even written the occasional blog post about it such as Poetry in Motion. But Rulo had a way of explaining the sequence of movements that made it all clearer than it had ever seemed to me before. For instance, several time he drew diagrams of waves and marked on the diagrams exactly when to start easing the sheet to bear off, or when to torque the body to help the boat head up the wave and to avoid crashing into the next wave. Looking back it’s exactly the same technique as Ed Adams was describing in that article I quoted in the above link, but Rulo’s explanation was easier to understand and remember.

Then it was out on the water for some windward-leeward drills and races of various types to allow Rulo to assess our boat-handling skills, upwind, downwind, tacking and gybing. There was one drill I hadn’t seen before, what Rulo called a “points” race and I came to know as the never-ending race. It was basically a windward-leeward race for an indeterminate number of laps. The leader at each mark (after the first) had to do a 360 and the race kept going until someone had done five 360’s. Luckily there were a couple of sailors at the clinic who were significantly better than the rest of us so that one or other of them would be able to regain the lead at five marks before we had sailed the mathematically possible twenty seven laps or so.

I needn’t have worried too much about being out of form. I caught a few rides on waves and did a few gybes to warm up before the drills started, and all of a sudden the memories of how much fun this place was last year came flooding back. I was able to hang in there around the middle of the fleet for most of the drills and occasionally was doing even better.

However, the thing that I found most gratifying about the day was that Rulo would come up behind me in his motor boat while I was sailing in the drills and give me detailed feedback on faults in my technique and how to improve. I’ve done a number of other sailing clinics before but I don’t think I’ve ever had quite so much good, relevant, detailed, personal feedback before. Then there was also a comprehensive group feedback session after sailing, with video shots from the on-the-water session, that reinforced and expanded what I had learned during the day. Quite a learning experience.

Main Learnings

1. Exactly when to torque on the waves.

2. I need to work the upper body more in these conditions.

3. I should hike hard before swapping sheet and tiller hands after a tack. (I’d developed this lazy style of doing the handswap while crossing the boat and Rulo said it delays me from hiking the boat flat and accelerating out of the tack properly.)

4. The optimum path for steering when gybing at a leeward mark. I don’t think anyone had ever properly explained this to me before and my former abysmal technique was quite obvious on some of the video feedback.

5 If you don’t exercise for three months and then go on a serious training session in big waves you are going to ache in every part of your body afterwards. Ouch. Thank God for the bottle of painkiller labeled Ron in the hotel room refrigerator.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

Adam Turinas, the famous sailing blogger, challenged us to blog our favorite sailing photo. I like a lot of the shots I took of kids I taught to sail a few years back. There’s something very cute about a little kid in an Optimist with a big grin when you can just see that he or she gets it, sailing really is the more fun than video games. But there’s also something that feels a bit weird about posting pictures of other people’s kids on the Internet.

So here is the other extreme of small boat sailing. Laser World Champion Gustavo Lima catching a ride down a huge breaking wave at Cabarete, the best place in the world to sail Lasers.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

Forecast for tomorrow where I am now
High 40 degrees F
RealFeel 29 degrees F
Cloudy, breezy with a mix of snow and rain in the afternoon

Forecast for tomorrow where I’m going to be later this week
High 79 degrees F
Wind speed 11 knots
Waves 1.7m

Before the middle of January, I’m planning on ticking off at least the first seven of my one hundred days of Lasering in 2008. But can I sail more days than Edward next year?

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back

There’s a lot of energy in waves. Every sailor knows it. The photo above is of 2003 Laser World Champion Gustavo Lima catching a ride downwind on a typical wave during last year’s Caribbean Laser Midwinter Championship in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. Can’t you just feel the rush of adrenaline as he takes off down the wave? Mmmmmm. Don’t you wish that was you? It could be. 21 days from today I’m going to be riding that wave (or one very much like it) in Cabarete. Come join me.

But what about all that energy in waves? With all the recent news about climate change and greenhouse gases and the need to start using more renewable energy sources, isn’t it about time we started using some of that energy in waves to warm our homes and cook our turkeys and light our Xmas trees this holiday season?

It sure is. So I was especially pleased to read that my recently adopted state, Rhode Island, is planning to to develop two wave-energy facilities off the coasts of Point Judith and Block Island that would convert energy from the waves into electricity. Rhode Island is partnering with an Australian company, Oceanlinx, to develop the facilities. Here’s a picture of what they will look like.

I’ve no idea whether this project is actually going to happen. Clearly there are all sorts of political, legislative, financial and technical obstacles to overcome. I’m sure some local water users are going to come up with all sorts of objections why the facilities shouldn’t be built in their backyards. And even if these generators are built, who knows if the power they generate will be economic? And why on earth are we using an Australian company? Aren’t there American companies who know how to do this stuff?

But I am kind of proud of my little ocean state for leading the way on this issue. As the rest of the world loses patience with the failure of the Bush administration to take the perils of climate change seriously it’s good to know that at least one state government, led by our governor Donald Carcieri, is trying to address the issue.

Ride the wave, Don dude.

Original post by Tillerman and software by Elliott Back